Roy Hodgson
Did it put an end to the game plan to concede so early?
Yes, it might have ended anyway because they are so good, most games I see them play, I see lots of goal opportunities for them. Whenever I watch Man City I’m not surprised when I see them score three goals plus, because of the quality of their attacking play. But if we were going to have any hope at all of making them work a bit harder for their victory, it would have to be keeping the clean sheet for a period of time in the first half, and then certainly, when you’ve seen that third goal go in – which was a fanatic strike, one of those unstoppable 25-yarders which, wind-assisted, fly into the roof of the net – that sours your feeling about the first half a little bit. But then to go out and within one minute really and give away a fourth goal. That takes the game totally out of your reach and then all you’re looking at, you’re looking into the abyss and you’re playing against a team that you know can score lots and lots of goals if they want to.
What does a result like this do to the player’s confidence?
Well, it can’t do their confidence any good. Our hopes and belief in ourselves to some extent was dented a bit last week by giving away that goal with the very last kick of the ball. So 1-1, which I thought we deserved on the performance, becomes 1-2. That doesn’t help. So to come here, it would have been nice if we could have produced enough of a performance and done well enough to come away from here and possibly beat them, because they are clearly a better team than we are. But with the hope, well okay, it is Man City, and no one really expected us to get so much out of that game. But of course, heavy defeats weigh heavily on people’s feelings about themselves and their confidence. So next week is going to be very simply a case of trying to lift up people’s confidence to get them to put this game aside. Learn of course from mistakes, like one always says one needs to do. But you know you don’t get pressurised as fiercely as we were today often in the Premier League. You do when you play Man City, you do when you play Liverpool. And it’s not always easy for players to come to terms with that, to make their decisions quick enough and to produce the technique necessary, quick enough, to make certain you don’t get the ball stolen from you in dangerous areas.
You managed the great Ronaldo at Inter Milan in the past, did you think he came out of retirement today as Gabriel Jesus played so well?
Yes, he was very, very good, wasn’t he? I never saw the best, the great Ronaldo. Unfortunately, he had a knee injury when I came in, he only played three games and the rest of the time he was injured. I enjoyed his company but I didn’t see as much of him as a player as I would have liked. But of course I’d seen enough of him before that. Jesus today was excellent really, really good. He took his chances extremely well. His pressurising was extremely good. His runs were very good. And of course, he got his reward with his four goals.
With the club looking sure to go down, what needs to change for Watford to be more competitive in the Premier League?
Well, I don’t know if it’s the right time to talk about that. I mean, first of all, I’m not prepared at the moment to say that it’s a nailed-on relegation. I can’t sit here and look at people who say: ‘It’s not looking good for you. And you know, you’ve got an awful lot of work to do now and you’re going to need to get some some some good results. One after the other if you’re gonna get out of this situation.’ I can’t deny that and I can’t make any complaints about people saying that. But I don’t think I need to actually accept the situation that we are relegated until such time as we are. And in terms of any opinions I might have with regard to the club, and anything that might need to be done, I’ll only give those opinions if I’m asked to buy by the owner. If he wants my opinion on that, then, of course, I would give it to him. But I don’t intend to give that opinion to anyone other than him. And I don’t intend to say anything about what the club is or how it should work and how it needs to go forward and what it needs to do. That will be really a question for Gino Pozzo and Cristiano Giaretta. And that their job. But if they wanted to hear what I thought, of course, they know, I will give them my thoughts
Do you have assurances you won’t get fired before the end of the season?
No. no assurances at all. So that’s, that’s another matter altogether if they think that the situation can be changed by getting rid of myself and Ray [Lewington], then that will be their prerogative. I’ve never asked for any assurances since I came to the club. I said: ‘I’ll come to the club, I do the job to the best of my ability’. But I’ve never once asked for an assurance, and I don’t have those types of conversations with the owner.
Ismaila Sarr picked up a knock early on, did that affect his display and is he okay?
I don’t know. I was told that the knock was okay and that he could carry on. You’d had to ask him if affected his game. He came off, because I thought that Joao Pedro might do a better job.
Sarr is considered one of the saleable assets. What does he need to do to show potential suitors that he is worth buying?
I don’t know. It would depend upon what the potential suitors want to see I suppose. But I’m not aware that he’s up for sale. But you obviously know more than me, I didn’t realise the club was interested in selling him. I’ve always thought the club would be interested in keeping him. So if the worst happens, and the club gets relegated, he will be one of the players who will get them back up again.
Hassane Kamara and Emmanuel Dennis both didn’t look about of place today, right?
I agree. There were performances out of the 11 players that I’m not unhappy with. And you just named two of them there, of course, who did extremely well. But if you’re going to get something up here, apart from not putting yourself 1-0 down after a minute, and considering a goal one minute into the second half, if we take that aside, what you got to do during the rest of 90 minutes, you’ve got to get quite a few ticks by a lot of players, who come off and you say, well: ‘He did well today, he had a good game, and he did exactly what we were looking for’. I don’t think we had enough ticks.
Do you think there’s anything you could have done differently?
No, I’m not certain I could have. There’s no point thinking in those terms anyway. When I came in, I was given a mandate and the club made it clear what they would like Ray and I to do to try and get a better organisation certainly defensively. But having said that, you know, even that hasn’t worked in the way we would like because when you concede five goals up here, you can’t say we’ve improved the defending as much as we would have liked.
